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Taiwan, mainland agree to landmark direct air links
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-01-15 17:07

Taiwan and the mainland agreed to landmark direct flights for next month's Lunar New Year holidays, a mainland official said.

The flights would run from January 29 until February 20, head of the Chinese delegation and vice chairman of the board of directors of the mainland-based Straits Aviation Exchange Commission, Pu Zhaozhou, told reporters in Macao.


Pu Zhaozhou (R), vice chairman of the board of directors of the mainland-based Straits Aviation Exchange Commission, chats with Mike Lo, chairman of Taipei Airlines Association, during a news conference after their meeting in Macao January 15, 2005. Taiwan and the mainland reached an agreement on Saturday on landmark direct flights over the Chinese New Year holidays between Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in mainland China, along with Taipei and Kaohsiung in Taiwan, a move which could ease tensions and improve ties between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits. [Reuters]
The 24 round-trip flights would fly over Hong Kong and connect the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou with Taipei and Kaosiung in Taiwan, Pu said, reading from a statement.

Taipei has banned direct transport exchanges across the Taiwan Strait since 1949.

During the Chinese New Year holidays in 2003, six Taiwanese airliners were allowed to fly to Shanghai to pick up Taiwanese businesspeople and take them home via Hong Kong or Macao. There was no similar service in 2004.

Despite the longstanding ban on direct links, limited direct exchanges -- known as "mini-links" -- were opened in 2002 between Taiwan's frontline islands of Matsu and Kinmen and selected ports in southeastern Fujian province.

The cross-Straits ties have been increasingly strained since the re-election of Taiwan's pro-independence leader Chen Shui-bian in March last year.



 
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